The Angel Sees, The Angel Knows
by Restless And Tempted
Summary: What ran through their minds after the incident on the roof of the Opera House? These were the thoughts that set them on their fatal paths, that led them to their ruin. Oneshot seperated into 3 parts. First Erik's POV then Christine's, now Raoul's also.
1. The Angel Sees

**A/N: **Well, this is my first attempt at phan fiction, (so please be kind!).

Basically this is my interpretation of Erik and Christine's thoughts after Christine had her rendezvous with Raoul atop the Opera House.

I tried to make it both book and movie friendly. There are a few quotes from the book and the movie that I used in this to more closely link it to both the book and the movie.

So, here it is hope you like it! Please review, feedback is really appreciated! (",)

_**The Angel Sees, the Angel Knows**_

_**Erik's POV**_

I can't breathe! Here at the very pinnacle of my chosen domain, caught between Heaven's stars and mans' crude, artificial lighting, (where air should've been the least of my worries!), I can't breathe!

I can hardly form words. I, whose knowledge is limitless, have been struck dumb by Fate's most cruel intervention. Why did I follow her? Have I not suffered enough?

Never did I believe that there would come a day when her golden voice, my proudest creation, would torture me so unmercifully! A day when I would give anything to make her fall silent forever so I would never have to hear her speak those wretched words of betrayal! Those sickening words of unjust truth to that unworthy boy…

Oh Christine…My Christine…You were mine…Why?

God, the rage, the blinding rage and the crushing sorrow!

You do not know what you have done to your poor Erik, your poor, foolish Erik.

Don't you see all that I have done for you? You were a mere child when I came to you, a lost child discarded by Fate just as I had been.

Had I simply ignored your desperate cry for help, grief at the unfulfilment of your Father's promise and your failure to achieve your dreams would've destroyed you. But I could not ignore you, you clawed your way into my heart, inch by agonising inch, and so the Angel of Music was born.

Perhaps I should not have fooled you, my dear, but you were so desperate to believe in something again that I found I could not regret my decision too fiercely. And so with Your Angel's guidance, even though he was just a man, you ascended; no longer were you a lowly worshipper of Music, you had become Its Goddess! And I worshipped you did I not? Unworthy to touch you, yet you allowed me to touch, unworthy to love you and yet, oh bittersweet agony, I loved!

I would cut out my heart should you mention, in passing, that it may please you! I would give you my soul, tarnished though it may be, if you would only surrender your love to me! Why do you fight the darkness I know you crave in your most secret of dreams? Everything I did was for you, in your name!

But I declare my all-consuming love in vain, for you would declare it unrequited. I see clearly now! A harsh, unrelenting light has been shone on your deceit and it is there, illuminated so _beautifully_ for me to see! But what you have done is not beautiful, is it, my dear? Oh no, not at all! Erik will show you just how ugly you have made things, for Erik knows all about ugliness, wouldn't you agree, Christine?

You let fear and a handsome face whisper lies in your ear! You followed in meek resignation as that damned Vicompte led you astray. You have forfeited your heart to a mere mortal and now you can no longer remain divine! Your heart was to be mine and I would've loved you forever!

But, oh dear, you forget, you ignorant child, that your soul was mine long ago! He can never have that! Your immortal soul will share eternity with me just as it longs to, and you cannot change that…we cannot change who we are in the depths of our souls…

I was a fool, a pathetic fool to believe that you would love a ghost, a monster instead of a man, a White Knight. But, oh Christine, I could've been a man again for you, anything for you! This nightmarish face would have ceased to haunt you after a time had you only opened your mind to the wonders I could've shown you.

But no, no, no you would rather marry a child who will never understand you as I do now, never allow you to become all that you could be! A Prima Donna the likes of which the world has never and will never see again? No, not you, not anymore. Now you will be a beautiful porcelain doll, painted, dressed and put on a shelf for all the elite to see. Look but don't touch…

My heart clenches in disgust at the thought! You have destroyed it all now in your heartlessness. My God, I love you so much that I believe I could hate you for it! You have broken me! I will never be able to sing without hearing your Siren's voice, never be able to compose without seeing your cruelly lovely face! I could've died for you, I could've killed for you…I could kill you!

No, NO! I must stop this wicked madness! Not you, never you! But the boy…yes, yes, the boy! I could kill him; I could kill him and keep you forever and a day! His death will fix it all; he'll have no hold over you then.

He deserves to die, he has dared to taint the purity of a Goddess and steal the Angel of Music's bride. Or perhaps now I am the Angel of Doom once more?

Vengeance, my blood screams for it!

Ah, I find that I can breathe a little better now, now that I have embraced the darkness within. Like the Phantom I am so aptly named, I shall rise from the shadows and bring death to my enemies. I will teach them all that my wrath is to be most profoundly feared! Raoul de Chagny, your insolence has angered me for the last time! Death has marked you and will come soon, to claim you from my murderous hands.

And Christine, sweet Christine, don't think that your betrayal will be overlooked. I find that I cannot forgive you that easily. My trust has been broken along with my heart, but soon you will have forever to make it up to me. The kiss you bestowed upon the boy was the kiss of Death, did you not realise?

You may have left long ago, to plot and hide with your young lover, but don't think that you can escape me, don't think that that is what you truly want, my deceitful little love. The Angel sees, the Angel knows…

I will show you not to toy with me so; I will show you that you belong to me. You were always mine. Then there will be no more tears, no more pain. Your dear, loving Erik will be with you always.

And he'll always be there singing songs in your head…he'll always be there…singing songs in your head…


	2. The Angel Knows

_**Christine's POV**_

Dearest Diary,

I am writing this down for the sake of my sanity and because there is no one that I can turn to now, in this my darkest hour. Even the Lord can't help me it seems! Oh, my heart is breaking, it is being torn in two and the pain is too much!

What have I done? My God, what have I done? Oh, God I believe I've doomed us all! On the very top of my little world, the roof of the Opera House, I had been so sure, afraid, yes, but so sure that what I was doing was right! And now I am drowning in doubt!

Here within the confines of my dressing room, in the presence of that mirror, his mirror, I feel sickened by my childish actions. Raoul is only outside my door waiting for me to return changed and ready to be escorted home, and yet I have never felt more alone. This is the only way, surely it must be! How can my resolve have crumbled so completely in a matter of moments?

When I look at myself in the mirror I hardly recognise the person staring back at me. I have been irrevocably altered. I have endured so much that, where once there was an innocent little chorus girl; there is now a world weary young diva. I should know exactly who I am and what I want, yet here I am, a lost little child again reaching out desperately for something to cling to, someone to guide me so I don't have to truly feel as though I've lost my way. It appears that I have not grown much at all…

I was faced with the most important and potentially, the most dangerous, decision of my young life and I faltered, hesitated for a split second and in that second, it would seem, I forfeited my right to choose. Angel or man? Live my life with a ghost or put my faith in an old memory?

Tonight I found myself standing on a precipice looking down into a cavernous abyss and wondering if I were to jump, would I soar or plummet? Now, it seems I will never know, for instead of testing the wings that my Angel had given me, I allowed myself to be drawn back from the edge by a safe and sensible hand.

The caring hand of my oldest friend and now…now my betrothed as well. Oh I had so hoped that after writing it down I would feel the natural happiness of a bride-to-be but all I seem capable of feeling is shame! This feels wrong, it all seems so wrong!

Oh, Raoul, my dear, reliable Raoul, you are so happy to play the hero, so convinced that you are rescuing me as you once rescued my scarf. You think that you are saving me from a monster but the only thing you are saving me from is myself. Now that I, in my weakness, have allowed you to take charge, I no longer have to face myself, face my terrifyingly convoluted feelings!

I love you, this I know. I have loved you for such a long time, but I find myself wondering how much of that love is real…do I love you simply because, with you, I can live in a world of memories, memories of happier, simpler times. It has been so long, Raoul, we are not the same as we were before. Things have changed no matter how much we pretend they haven't.

It was easy to feel free on the roof with you, easy to mean everything I promised you and easy to allow myself to believe that everything would be alright, too easy perhaps. Your presence is like the most beautiful ray of sunshine, in your presence everything seems that way, easy…safe.

But that isn't the way life is, it isn't real. I can leave with you and pretend that I will not regret it at all, pretend that I will be perfectly happy. But that is all it will be; pretend.

We are from two different worlds now and we can no longer make believe as we once did, we can't be children anymore…no matter how much we'd like to be. And no matter how much you disagree I have been visited by the Angel of Music and he has crawled inside my being.

Erik…You are not the Angel I once believed you to be and yet you are so much more than just a man. You have the power to terrify me, to inspire me but worst of all you have the power to move me! I believe that I lo…No…I can not write down how I feel about you because I am afraid to, afraid to admit to it and make it real.

Words would never be sufficient enough to explain it anyway, I can hardly understand it! You have made me feel every human emotion possible! How incredibly shallow a creature I was before you took my soul under your wing! In you I lose myself completely but in doing so I feel whole!

But you are not an Angel! You are a murderer, a liar, a thief! So many horrors you have committed, and some in my name! But these do not scare me the most, not even your face, pitifully horrid as it may be (so ashamed am I to have not yet fully overcome the shock of that face). No, what scares me most is that I do not care about these things as much as I should!

Your presence is so intoxicating that I find myself willing to overlook almost anything just to bask in it! If only I were brave enough to surrender to you, things would be clearer then. Perhaps I would be an engaged woman still, but my future husband would not glory in the light of the sun. But I am not that brave, Erik!

There is a darkness in you that should make me recoil from you completely but I am unable to. You have taken my soul and I don't want it back, I should but I don't. You have shown me that there is a kindred darkness in me, a fire that burns so intensely I do not know what to do about it. I don't understand, I yearn to but like a sheltered animal, I fear the unknown, so I run, I hide. You are Music, you are Magic, and you are Love so true that it blinds…but you are also the Unknown.

You see me as an Angel, one whom you hand-crafted. I would be nothing still if it had not been for you. But the pedestal you put me on is so high and unstable, I can not stay on it much longer. Soon I will fall for I have betrayed you, and it is killing me inside. I wish I could hate you as simply as Raoul does! I never meant to hurt you, but I can't stay here!

I can't go on denying you, but I don't know how to give myself fully to you without fearing the consequences. I know I am torturing you and it is driving me mad! This is the only way, it simply has to be! And yet I know that no matter what I do I can't win!

I can never be the fearless Angel you crave, Erik, and so to save us both the agony of never being, never having what we want, I will go away with Raoul. I will marry him and I know that he will make a good husband and he will forever try to make me happy. But I will never be truly happy with him, never truly whole.

As his wife I will never be able to be a Prima Donna as I had dreamed and this is a most bitter blow, for music is my most beloved passion! But that will not be the worst blow, no, that will lie in the fact that I know I shall never be able to love him as deeply and completely, as I should, as I would have, had there never been you, my Angel. I will live in barely concealed regret. Oh how I wish it weren't so but I cannot lie to myself anymore!

I will go with Raoul because I know it will make him happy and it will mean that I don't have to struggle with myself anymore. I will resign myself to living half a life as it's the best I can do.

Oh, Erik, please forgive me! Do not hate me, I hate myself enough already. I will never be able to forget you and though I wish it were a lie, I will miss you. Fate links thee to me forever and a day.

And Raoul, God how I wish things will turn out differently for us, that we will be blissfully happy, that I will be able to love you more than I do! I will give all I have left of me to you and pray that it is enough!

You truly are a wonderful, loving man perhaps even the better man, but I will never be able to banish my Angel from my mind. No matter how far we go, we will forever be haunted by his ghost. There is no escaping the Phantom of the Opera, no escaping Erik, I see that now.

He'll always be there singing songs in my head….he'll always be there…singing songs in my head…

And God help me for I would have it no other way!

Oh, Heavenly Father, have mercy on us all for we know not what we do…

Christine

**_A/N_**: So there it is, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! Feedback please. (",)


	3. The Role He Was Born To Play

**A/N:** A request prompted me to write this, so, here it is the companion piece to the other two, this time from Raoul's POV.

It was a little difficult to get into Raoul's head at times but I tried to stay fair to him. This is in the form of a letter to Philippe, Raoul's brother. For the sake of this piece imagine, if you will, that Philippe left on business shortly after Raoul & Christine reunited. Once again there are some variations of quotes from the book(s) & film within this piece.

Also, a quick note just to say a big thank you to everyone who has reviewed and/or favourited my stories.

Thank you to Nuria Shadow & livie lightyear for their reviews on this phanphic, & thanks to Christine8025 & Lady Moon Dragon for reviewing Necessary Madness.

I really appreciate it! **(",)**

**Enjoy!**

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Raoul's POV

Dearest Philippe,

Where to begin? So much has passed since we last spoke, it seems like another lifetime! Just a short time ago perhaps I would have written this letter in a joyous haste, euphoric and triumphant, but I find that the darker this night becomes the darker my thoughts are.

You remember I reunited with my old playmate, Christine Daae, yes?

From the moment I recognised her, when she opened her sweet lips and unleashed her angel's voice upon my reeling senses, I knew that I would not rest until I could call her mine.

I don't think you believed in the strength of my devotion when I told you my intentions towards her, you will forever see me as little more than a boy, your baby brother. I suppose you likened my infatuation to that of a child craving a new toy but it was so much stronger than that!

She had possessed me, bewitched me with her perfect voice and her ethereal beauty. She became an obsession of mine, I only thought of her, how to please her and win her favour. But I was not welcomed back with open arms as I had expected to be.

She ignored all my tokens of affection and always disappeared into her dressing room before I could speak with her. I knew that she saw me sometimes for she smiled softly at me; it was that smile that kept me going. I was sick with love for her.

Finally I managed to meet her in her dressing room, that's when she first told me of her Angel of Music…

Are you confused yet brother, have I lost you already? I hope I have not, for trust me when I tell you that my tale has not even begun to sink to the level of madness and surrealism that I find myself facing at this moment!

The Angel was a man, a madman! A murderer, a monster living right below our feet in the cellars! Can you believe it, dear brother, I certainly couldn't at first?! Sometimes I think I still doubt it, against my will I have at times found myself questioning my beloved's sanity.

She is not the same girl that she once was; I fear that I dare not delve too deep into this change of character. The truth can be a painful thing…I am learning that more and more…

But after tonight's events I am finding it near impossible to deny this creature's existence. He has been training Christine all this time! He has warped her mind, enthralled her.

His power over her was so strong, that I think had he not murdered almost before her very eyes tonight (yes, murder! I daresay you will hear all about it soon, if you haven't already!), that I would never have been able to make her see sense. She took me to the rooftop for my safety, and that is where my world truly changed.

My sweet little Lotte has agreed to marry me, she has finally relented. At last I have gotten what I wanted, true, though, that it is not the first time. But my victory, my joy seems hollow. I cannot shake my doubts…my fears…my anger!

I have won the battle but what of the war?

You know me better than anyone Philippe, I have never been insecure about anything in my life, I have never had reason to be! It is only recently that I have come to know this foreign emotion, and it terrifies me as much as it infuriates me!

The things that she told me on that roof haunt my thoughts. I came to know the truth about her teacher but it was not the whole truth. She hides something from me still.

She told me all about her horror, her fear, her hopelessness…but there was something in her eyes, in her voice that unsettled me. As she spoke of her _Angel_, in her eyes, I thought I saw…love…a love of the most exquisite kind, a secret love…

But it couldn't have been, surely I am imagining things! How could she feel anything for him but disgust! He lied to her, kidnapped her, murdered in her name! Yet the way she utters his name…that name, Erik…How I hate it! How I hate him! His presence is poison!

She is marrying me, so why do I feel as though I am losing her? Music has always been her weakness, closely linked as it is to the memory of father, ingrained in her very nature, I can see it every time she sings.

Erik's music touches her as nothing else can, perhaps even more than I can. I wonder, if Erik had been a normal man in possession of those unearthly _talents_ of his, would Christine still have chosen me?

No, I should not allow myself to feel this way. I am giving her everything she could ever need, surely everything she has ever wanted! Love, money, status and security. I refuse to believe that this is not exactly what she needs. I am prepared to play the hero for her; it is the role I was born to play. But there is only one way to ensure my peace of mind…

I have to get Christine away from this place as soon as possible; it is the only way to free her. But first, I must free myself. I cannot allow this Erik to remain at large, I must eliminate the threat he represents (I wonder do I truly mean his threat to Christine or to myself, I am not ready to face that question yet).

I cannot spend the rest of my life wondering if she truly means it when she tells him goodbye, it is better to be certain. It seems the only way to be certain in this case is to leave no other option; it is for the best I know it! I will not have my wife haunted by his ghost; I will not live like that!

I pray that this nightmare will soon be ended. I have to believe that we will be perfectly happy together when these storm clouds have cleared from our sky, we will…we will, I know it!

I will make her the happiest woman in the world!

Perhaps we will visit that little house by the sea, recapture memories of our innocent youth. I feel I have aged much since then, and yet, sometimes, not enough perhaps.

But now is not the time to dwell on such things, it is a joyous time and I am determined to see it as such, regardless of whatever we have yet to face. We are together that is what is important!

We will marry and then I will take my bride far away…somewhere even his voice will not be able to reach…

I will silence the songs he sings in her head…

I will make her forget him by loving her with all that I am. It will be enough to break his hold on her. She does not love him, she does not!

You agree with me, don't you brother? You can see that what I am doing is right, can't you? My God, when did it become difficult to tell?

My goodness, it is morning already! I must finish writing and retire to bed for a time, exhaustion has claimed me suddenly. I hope to hear from you soon, Philippe, and, that next time we meet I will be a happily married man.

Oh, it looks to be a beautiful day here in Paris brother, the sun is shining gloriously. Should I worry that all I feel is cold?

Your Loving Brother,

Raoul.

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There you have it. Hope you enjoyed it! Feedback please. **(",)**


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